Well now this is interesting: Kathryn Stockett, author of THE HELP, is being sued by the help a woman who works for her brother, who claims the author appropriated her name and likeness for the book:

The lawsuit, filed in Hinds County Circuit Court, contends that Kathryn Stockett was “asked not to use the name and likeness of Ablene” before the book was published, though it does not specify who asked. Ms. Cooper said that Ms. Stockett, for whose daughter she once baby-sat, had never talked to her about the book... Though the character of Aibileen is portrayed in a sympathetic, even saintly light, she endures the racial insults of the time, something that Ms. Cooper said she found “embarrassing.”

Times has more but with spoilers.